I'm sad? No, you're sad!

Drinking at home. Go me.

- In case you missed it or didn't want to hunt around the internet, Devron Bostick won the dunk contest and Lawrence "LDUB $ SIKC 6" Westbrook won the three point contest at the Gophers' Before Midnight Madness hoo-ha. If you want more details, you can get plenty from the nerds over at The Gopher Hole. Lot's of good info, and I'm very excited about the reaction to Paul Carter, who I was expecting the least out of among the newcomers this year. Granted the Gopher Holies are generally pretty optimistic, but it sounds good to me.

- Speaking of nerds, From the Barn has a very nice rundown of Tubby's Tip-Off with more details than you could ever need. I don't particularly feel comfortable with his Kevin Love comparison, but pretty good stuff in general. Also be sure to check out his player-by-player preview of the 2008-2009 season. Not featured: praise for Kevin Payton. Except that he's tall.

- This is freaking unbelievable. TBS is showing the Steve Harvey show right now because they're "having technical difficulties" and aren't able to show the Sox/Rays game. Bull. F'ing. Crap. This is some kind of pro-Red Sox conspiracy, I know it.

- Remember Kenny George? The 7-7 behemoth from UNC-Asheville? The guy who's pro scouting sheet read:
PROS: Really tall. Has both feet.
CONS: Everything else
Remember him? Well, update your cheatsheets, because he just had part of his foot lopped off. Apparently he had some sort of bad ass infection or some such. He should probably wash his feet better, but I bet it's tough when you're so far away from them. Should probably use a stick.

- Bossman Junior Upton just hit a homerun that I can't watch. But on the bright side, Steve Harvey is funny.

- I'm kidding. No he's not. And if you just agreed with that what I said up there then you should probably stop watching TV.

- Hey whoever this announcer is, they do not call James Shields, "Big Game James." That's James Worthy. And now announcer #2 even brings up Worthy, and acknowledges and condones the stolen nickname, which is only ok if you're LaDainian Tomlinson. Homerun Youkilis. Nice pitch, Worthy.

- I'm a wee bit concerned about my boy Rico. Checking out the report on Pepperdine's Midnight Madness, there's nary a single mention of King Rico. He didn't participate in the dunk contest, despite winning it last year, and was also absent from the three point contest, despite being able to make it rain. There is a play-by-play of the intrasquad scrimmage available, and he doesn't show up there either. There is no mention of an injury anywhere on Pepperdine's site.

I was concerned, so I checked out his facebook page, and he seems to be in good spirits as he recently changed his status to read, "Rico Tucker is the New King of Everything." I can't say I disagree. I may have found a clue, however, in a mysterious message left on his page by Moe Hargrow. It reads,

"my niggga...wus hood? yea back on the book to keep in tune wit the rest of the world. As for me back across the water for another season"

Perhaps if I can decipher this cryptic message I will find the answers I seek.

- Did I ever tell you that Mrs. W is a Red Sox fan? So embarrassing.

- What's best: Cheez-Its, Cheese Nips, or Goldfish?

- I was going to write about how the Twins were lucky at this point to not have gotten Jacoby Ellsbury in a Santana trade, since he OPS+'d just 89 and was basically nothing more than a fast, excellent defensive center fielder with no real pop and lacking an understanding of the strike zone. Then I realized how familiar that sounded, except Gomez was even worse at the plate.

- Tonight's post is brought to you by Monica Keena:As seen in such films as Freddy vs. Jason and some other movies that don't matter.

- F v J was actually a pretty good movie by the way. Of course, I'm a huge Friday the 13th fan, but in my totally biased opinion it was one of the better ones in either series. Quite clever how they wrote it up to get those two together, and a very good ending. Unlike the new Indiana Jones movie. More on that Monday.

- Are you telling me we're all paused and what not here because of an Umpire's injury? What happened? Did he actually call a strike and it caused massive chest pains? We had flipped away so now I'm all confused. Much like the new Indiana Jones movie.

- Basically they're just freezing Shields at this point. Thank god he's Big Game James and this ain't no thing for him. I still don't know what the hell happened, but we're back.

- Is there a worse hitter right now than Jason Varitek? He's completely lost up there. It's like watching Snacks try to hit a lefty in town ball. He hit all of .220 this year, with an OPS+ of 74 and has gone 3-14 and 0-14 in the two playoff series so far. Note: That OPS+ of 74 is in the same basic region as Carlos Gomez this season. But according to Snacks he has 30 homerun potential, so look out world.

- Crawford steals second, which means Varitek can't hit nor can he throw runners out. Having trouble figuring out why he's even on the team at this point.

- You know, I've heard a whole assfaceload of times about how Cliff Floyd is just a winner, and he wins everywhere he goes. Well, what happened in 1995 (66-78)? 1998 (54-108)? 1999 (64-98)? 2003 (66-95)? And there's a bunch of other sub .500 seasons in there too. Plus, he just grounded out here in the fourth with the tying run on second, so it's clear he doesn't "win everywhere he goes" but he doesn't even know how to win and probably doesn't even want to win. What a dick.

- Nevermind about Varitek, he just threw out Navarro. Dioner Navarro. The opposing catcher. He has five career steals and his middle name is Favian, I sure as hell hope you can throw him out. Why the holy mother hell is he stealing in the first place? I hope that was a busted hit and run. I'd know, but Mrs. W got all antsy so we're watching the Office now. That Creed is a funny Mofo.

- As I typed that Jason "Sweet Cheeks" Bartlett goes deep to tie the game, and once again assures me that our Bartlett vs. Varitek Total Bases bet will be a win.

- WTF? Seriously?

- That was awesome how Bartlett couldn't make a throw to first there, leading to another Boston run. It's like watching the Tigers against the Cardinals two years ago, they're just giving it away.

- God, fine. Here's another Wonderbaby (TM) picture:
I don't know. Eating a fake pig. She's not a genius.

- Terrelle Pryor is the next Mike Vick.

- Holy god the Rays are pissing down their legs like Ohio State against an SEC team. Except they are actually more talented, not less. I bet I could have made a good comparison for this like an hour ago, but beer makes my brain not work so good. In any case, they're choking hard. Like your mom. There, that's a pretty good comparison.

- I'm calling it a game here. Pena just got an inside fastball from Masterson with a runner on that he should have absolutely crushed, but completely missed it and hit a horridly weak pop up. Rays suck. Go Phillies.

- I would be willing to bet $5,000 (approx. 1 week's pay) that Papelbon gets passed around the Red Sox clubhouse like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank.

- God dammit. I just, I just hate the Red Sox so much. And if they win tomorrow night all we're going here is a bunch of destiny bullshit. and just now as the game ended and the gay sox won Mrs. W started clapping and I've never wanted to toss her down a flight of stairs more than I do right now. Except right after she told me she was pregnant.